


3 Times Newt Was a Bad Diabetic + 1 Time Hermann Was a Good One

by Macremae



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Chronic Illness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mild Blood, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Sort Of, Type 1 Diabetes, also anako's here because if i can put them in i fucking will, because like. there's bg testing, in which projecting takes ENTIRELY NEW LEVELS OF BUCKWILD.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: When you have as much shit to do as Dr. Newt Geiszler (or have as much shit thrownatyou), checking your blood sugar isn't super high on the priority list. Too bad not doing so could kill you!Or: a trio of Newt fucking up medically, and one instance of Hermann having it Up To Here.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109





	3 Times Newt Was a Bad Diabetic + 1 Time Hermann Was a Good One

**Author's Note:**

> jared, 19 voice: got diagnosed with fail pancreas syndrome! so now i take insulin hehehehehee. anyone who writes chronically ill hermann not being some level of Fucking Over It at all times didn't do their research right. i get it now. also newt voice do you think make a wish covers dying on the inside

1.

The issue with being disability buddies, Newt decided, was that Hermann was not taking it seriously.

He had said no to Newt using the term in public. He had refused to let a sticker be put on his cane. He lectured Newt on professionalism for seven minutes straight after he had suggested t-shirts, even though it would have been worn under Hermann’s thirty million billion other layers of clothing because the man had all the natural body insulation of like, a cricket. Not only that, but his bedside manner was worse than Dr. fucking House, which really put the cherry on top of this whole little infirmary visit extravaganza.

Things were not going excellently for Newton Geiszler. He was in the infirmary for Diabetic Ketoacidosis (again). He had (probably) learned his lesson this time. And, after a lecture from the indomitable Dr. Flaerty on the dangers of prolonged DKA and not taking care of oneself (although they were sort of the pot calling the kettle black, but Newt liked his kneecaps thank you very much), Hermann had arrived in a noxious cloud of self-righteousness for round fucking two. Which was currently occurring now.

“Three minutes,” he was saying as Newt desperately tried to find something interesting in the stain patterns of the ceiling, “that’s all it takes Newton, really; you have a bloody app on your phone for the first part! And you work with needles every day so I cannot see what’s so difficult about a nearly painless shot that you, as I’m sure you have now been made _quite_ aware, require to _live_.”

“Uh huh,” said Newt. There was a spot up there that looked kind of like a jam jar. Hermann snapped his fingers in front of his face.

“Newton. Are you even listening to me?”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Hey, tell me if that stain looks like a jar to you?”

Hermann made a noise of frustration that was highly correlated to his proximity to Newt. “You are going to get yourself killed one day, and I am going to stand over your grave and laugh.”

Newt snorted. “Jokes on you; I’m getting cremated. I want my ashes on the moon.”

He pressed his lips together in a thin, tense line. “I would ask what they have you on, but unfortunately I get the feeling you are completely sober.”

Newt raised his hand and fluttered his fingers, displaying the IV stuck in the back of it. “Just a saline drip, bud. Sorry to disappoint, but you won’t be getting any embarrassing videos of me singing opera this time.”

“Oh,” Hermann sneered, “you certainly don’t need any narcotics for _that_.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “And these chairs are abysmal. They can budget for new showerheads in the pilot rooms, but not padded seats? Or, if you want to be less trivial, those requisition forms I sent out weeks ago for a fourth monitor still haven’t been even so much as looked atー”

Newt smirked. “Y’know, you don’t have to come up with something to rant about just to stay here, Herms. You can just admit you enjoy my scintillating company.”

Hermann looked at him as if he were a crushed pile of chalk-dusk under his cane. “Don’t be ridiculous, Newton. I’m only here to keep you from getting bored and leaving before your number is stable.”

“Psh, what?” Newt rolled his eyes as best he could with his headache. “I wouldn’t.”

“You would, you have, you literally did it the last time you were here,” came a voice from the doorway. Dr. Flaerty had returned.

Newt was, on principle, slightly afraid of Anako at all times. They were wirey, yes, but exceptionally tall (dwarfing most of the Jaeger pilots), and their large tangle of curly ginger hair gave them the look of a spitting cat, even when it was in its near-constant bun. Their eyes were dark and shadowed, and Newt had the feeling that if he looked directly into them, he would absolutely see his own death. Their aura was that of a human punch; you were inspired to brush your teeth and add a multivitamin to your morning regimen just by standing next to them. It was whispered that, after learning Chuck Hansen had refused his flu shot for four years in a row, Anako had dressed him down so thoroughly on the importance of herd immunity and keeping dead pathogens dead that he was seen the next day with several colorful bandaids and a fully stocked immunization record. Newt had seriously considered suggesting just throwing them at the Breach and seeing what happened. He’d feel sorry for the Kaiju.

They unhooked the clipboard from the foot of Newt’s bed and scanned it over. “In fact, if Gottlieb hadn’t come here of his own volition, I would have dragged him down myself. You stay until that number hits one-twenty and your ketones are gone, and then you can scamper off back into your little hidey-hole of crimes against nature.” They clicked their pen and scribbled something down. “Don’t like it? Dose your fuckin’ insulin.”

“I can’t just shoot myself up every time I want a snack, dude!” Newt complained, throwing up his hands carefully to avoid jostling the IV. “We’re on the clock here; I don’t eat on a three to four hour schedule!”

Anako raised their head and stared at Newt cooly. “Then I will print out just a _cracker_ little sticker with your name on it and put it on this bed, and you can come back here every week or so when your BG levels are in the four to five hundreds. And then you can die.”

From beside him, Newt heard Hermann suppress a laugh. He glared at him. “Shut up, man. You’re not the one who has to stop everything and stab yourself every time you want anything with carbs.”

Hermann raised an eyebrow. “You would prefer the transfusions, then? And the Humira?”

Newt pictured the needle Hermann injected it with every Sunday and shuddered. “Okay, fine. Point taken. But I still don’t see why I can’t just get a goddamn pump.”

Anako clipped the pen back onto the clipboard and set it on its hook. “Because this is a war, Geiszler. Having the materials needed to build and repair Jaegers is significantly more important than a little bit of convenience. You can deal with the big scawy-wawy needle. You’re an adult.”

“Debatable,” muttered Hermann, and Newt smacked his leg with the tube of his IV.

“Hey. I’m ailing here.”

“Ah yes, and whose fault is that?”

“Yours,” Anako supplied helpfully. “And think of it this way, Doctor-doctor-doctor-doctor-doctor-doctor: the longer and more often you spend in the infirmary, the less work you get done. Shut up, win the war, and you can get your bloody insulin pump along with everyone else.” They gave him a thin, faux-smile. “Cracker?”

Newt shot them one just as fake back. “I’ll try my best.”

They didn’t seem too upset, and even after they left, Newt still had a crushing headache, a cramp in his leg, and blurry vision that had nothing to do with his glasses.

“Perhaps,” said Hermann, “and this is just a thought, but the next time you find yourself near-dying of thirst and losing weight at the pace of a war prisoner?” He shot Newt a smoldering glare. “ _Check your bloody meter_.”

Newt huffed and crossed his arms. “Whatever. Who has time to deal with that sort of shit these days, anyway?”

Hermann clearly didn’t choose to dignify that with a response.

»»————- ☠ ————-««

2.

It was, for the first time in decades, not the end of the world, but everyone was drinking like the exact opposite was true.

Newt sat on the edge of one of the tables laden down with varying forms of alcohol, swinging his legs back and forth as he occasionally took a swig from the bottle of Kahlua mudslide mix that honestly tasted less like booze, and more like a cold-bottled Frappuccino. The tone, he mused, was starkly different from every other LOCCENT rager he had been to in the past; there wasn’t the tinge of desperation and fear that accompanied trying to get your kicks in before the Kaiju went nuclear. People were just celebrating. Laughing. Hysterically trying come to grips with the idea of a future in the best possible way.

He took another drink from the bottle and let his eyes glaze over a bit, allowing the sounds of the party to wash over him. In all honesty, he was absolutely fucking fried, and probably should go down to the medbay and get a brain scan after not one but _two_ Kaiju hivemind Drifts, but for now Newt was content to just soak it all in. He had the time, after all. Things could, quite literally, only get better from here.

Of course, that was when the first shudder of heat licked its way up his body, and the bottle in his hands began to shake. 

Newt blinked quickly, wiping some sweat off his neck, and glanced down at his hands. Oh boy. Not good.

He tapped his foot in midair, hoping it was just his body being overdramatic about some lowーbut still in safe rangeーnumbers, but as the minutes crawled by and it became harder to sit up straight, he realized that maybe, perhaps, he should have been eating some carbohydrates while doing the aforementioned drinking to frankly insane levels. 

After fumbling his phone from his jean pocket, Newt quickly opened the app that went along with his blood glucose monitor and checked the number. Fifty four.

Mother _fucker_.

He glanced around, panic beginning to rise slightly in his chest as the only food within sight was a battered-looking cheese and meat plate, a bowl of what passed ration-wise for pork rinds, and jello shots. Newt swallowed hard. He had a stash of juice boxes back in his dorm, and another pack in one of the lab fridges, but those were all the way across the Shatterdome and he _really_ didn’t feel up to walking that far while both drunk, and flirting with hypoglycemia. Shit, fuck, aforementioned motherfuck. 

Then, like a miracle from heaven, he spotted a bag of pretzels thrown haphazardly on what had been designated as “the Blackout Table” (due to the frightening amount of donations from the Russian personnelle). With the adrenaline rush of a man about to collapse in front of all his drunken coworkers, he hopped off the table, snatched the bag of pretzels, and made a beeline for the supply closet just outside LOCCENT.

Slamming the door behind him, Newt let out a long, shaky sigh of relief and quickly scanned over the serving size on the back of the bag. He counted out on his lap what looked to be in the range of fifteen grams of carbs, set the bag aside, and began to quickly eat while tilting his head back against the door. Close call. _Way_ too close a call. Once the pharmaceutical system got its shit together again, he needed to invest in some glucose tablets.

A sudden knocking from outside startled him out of his thoughts, and Newt nearly dropped the pretzel he was holding in surprise.

“Newton?” came Hermann’s voice, sounding ever so slightly warbled. “Are you in there? I saw you run out.”

Newt cringed and internally debated whether to stay quiet; the idea of Hermann finding him fixing a low that honestly shouldn’t have happened, and diving into yet another lecture as a result, wasn’t appealing. However, they _were_... something, he thought. The Drift had been wild and weird and terrifying, but having another person in your head _had_ to at least bump you up a few notches on the relationship totem pole. Hermann got how annoying health stuff could be. He’d understand.

 _Okay, sure, but would he?_ came a tiny voice in the back of his mind. _Remember, he saw everything. Eve-ry-thing. He knows how much of a disaster you are at this; the guy probably watched you sprint out of the party and started queuing up a monologue about every other stupid thing you’ve done. Do you really want to deal with that_ and _a low blood sugar?_

Newt frowned. Hell fucking no he did not. Looks like his common sense was finally starting to kick in.

Hermann knocked a few more times, but Newt kept quiet, and after another minute he heard the fading sound of his cane clacking down the hallway. He let his shoulders untense and popped another pretzel into his mouth. It was for the better, anyway. It wasn’t like he could expect Hermann to be some kind of overly-fussy diabetes dog.

There was a whole new future to think about now. Newt needed to get some practice on handling things himself.

»»————- ☠ ————-««

3.

When Newt woke up on the floor of “his” indescribably shitty penthouse bathroom, in control for the first time in weeks, he knew something was wrong.

“What the fuck,” he said aloud, tongue clumsy and alien from lack of use. “Oh my God, what the fuck. What did you guys do? Did you try and eat the detergent pods again?”

 _No!_ came the Precursors' indignant response. _That was one time. We’ve been doing everything right to be human. This is clearly your fault, somehow._

Newt rolled his eyes, and goddamn did it feel good to be able to do that again. “I’m sure. Okay, what happened? Did we pass out?”

 _We don’t know,_ they said testily. _We were just putting on concealer, and then your stupid body became extremely tingly and light, and now we are on the floor. What did you do._

Newt clenched his jaw hard. “When I finally figure out how to throw myself off this goddamn building, it’s gonna be so nice.” He pushed himself up slowly, blinking as his vision swam. “Fuck. Okay, how’s our levels?”

The Precursors went very, very quiet. _Levels?_

“Yeah,” said Newt, talking slowly as if to a child. “Blood glucose levels. Where’s my phone; we can check on the app.”

_What app?_

Newt felt his jaw tense even further. “The Dexcom app. That connects to my monitor. Which we use to monitor BG. You guys did put a new one in after the old one expired, right?”

In a small voice that was extremely uncharacteristic of them, the Precursors said, _Well. No. We didn’t think it was a necessary expense._

Newt’s eye began to twitch. “But six bottles of 1935 Chardonnay fucking was?! Oh my God!”

_You never told us anything! How were we supposed to know!?_

“You people are in my _brain_! Mind-Google it! You can pull out my first goddamn locker-slam to torture me into infinity, but you can’t remember to put in a new fucking Dexcom?!”

_Diabetes is not a problem in the Anteverse! Why would we know anything about it!_

“To keep me _alive_ you absolute fucking troglodytes, Jesus Christ! Do you know how horrible death by DKA is?”

_No!_

“There’s a coma! Fluid acidification! Vomiting, organ failure, the whole enchilada! I know I keep saying it, but oh my _God_!”

 _Fine!_ the Precursors hissed, _then deal with it! You can have a break day!_

“Oh gee, thanks,” Newt said sarcastically, grabbing onto the edge of the vanity for support as he pulled himself to his feet. “God, my ketones are probably through the goddamn roof. Do you still have the test strips?”

Their answering silence said everything. Newt groaned.

“I cannot fucking believe you cloned actual Kaiju tissue, but can’t even manage Type fucking One Diabetes. Holy God.”

The Precursors huffed. _Whatever. Your bank account PIN is 4376. Wallet is on the kitchen counter. Let us know when we’re not dying._

Newt ached to shove a towel in his mouth and scream (or another, significantly more detrimental “coping method”, but now really wasn’t the time). He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Great. Okay. Hey Siri, where’s the nearest CVS?”

»»————- ☠ ————-««

+1

Beginning insulin therapy for a second time was, in all honesty, just as bad as last time, but with the added bonus of malnutrition, several cuts and bruises, about a decade’s worth of horrific psychological trauma, and the grand honor of being the Moulin Shatterdome’s local ex-emissary pariah. 

Newt was… adjusting was a word one could use for it. He was still the foremost expert on Kaiju biology, so after his scans had been given the all clear and most of his injuries had healed, he had slipped back into some low-tier dissection and cataloguing work with relatively little discussion on the matter (although Hermann had likely had almost everything to do with that). Newt didn’t mind. The quiet, clean-yet-cluttered space of Hermann’s lab was an ocean away from his old setup at Shao, and he found himself listening for the scrape of Hermann’s chalk or the tap of his cane whenever he felt his mind start to turn. 

It was, funnily enough, like being right back in their old lab again. Newt felt like he sort of needed that.

There was still that sense of adjustment, however, and Newt had developed a bad habit of pushing himself so far into his work that he tended to forget the kind of things the Precursors usually either ignored, or took care of themselves. More than once he had awoken with his face pressed into his desk, lead or ink smudged on his cheek and papers, and Hermann’s old parka draped over him like a blanket. It was horrifically embarrassing to think about, especially since Hermann already had more than enough to handle besides making sure Newt didn’t accidentally die of dehydration. 

It wasn’t just that Newt had little practice taking care of himself; he felt like hell. The IV he had been put on while in containment hadn’t contained any carbohydrates, and his system had ricocheted back and forth between the borders of DKA and hypo until Hermann and Anako, working as a ruthless duo of unstoppable force and immovable object respectively, had bullied the Marshall into a proper setup of treatment. Newt’s body was adjusting to the new influx of insulin, and every part of it ached like a punch to the gut. He felt tired and woozy, but couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours before being woken by either his alarm for a BG check, or yet another nightmare. That, and his _fucking_ vision was still blurry despite the new, stronger perscription thanks to the Precursors’ heavily botched Lasik.

He knew that if he could just push through this for the next couple of weeks his body would adjust and return to normal, but for now it was like working with the flu. He had to strain his eyes to focus them, which resulted in a low, pulsing headache and a work pace like molasses. Cold, sharp frustration churned in Newt’s gut as he reached under his glasses to rub his eyes for the second time that minute. He felt fucking _useless_ , which was exactly the opposite of what he needed to be to prove his worth to the PPDC. The less progress he made, the more everyone’s opinions would be confirmed that he belonged anywhere but here. An asylum, for example.

A strange, yet forebodingly familiar feeling of shakiness suddenly hit him without warning, and Newt swayed a little in his chair. He shook his head to clear it. His body wasn’t used to normal glucose levels, and was just panicking at regular old homeostasis. It had been happening a lot in the past few days, but Newt couldn’t do anything except force his hands to be steady and try to ignore the dizziness as best he could. It would pass.

It didn’t.

Ten minutes passed, and Newt felt his eyes falling shut again and again, only to wrench them open and dig his fingernails into his palms. He could almost feel his blood moving through his body, and sweat was pouring down his back as waves of heat pulsed under his skin. He felt like he might throw up, and glanced aside to make sure a trash can was nearby. Could he sneak it under his desk so Hermann couldn’t see? Would some water help? It was getting hard to think; his mind shuddered like a boat caught in an ocean storm, and he just wanted to let himself collapse onto his desk and sleep.

Newt didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until it was too late, and jumped at the hand on his shoulder. His head whipped around, and black spots bloomed in his vision. Hermann stared down at him with a look of open worry.

“Newton,” he said, brow creased, “are you alright? You lookーI’m sorry, but you look awful.”

Talking felt like a monumental effort, so Newt just blinked stupidly. “Uh.”

Hermann frowned. “Have you checked your blood sugar lately? Or eaten something?”

Newt had, in fact, not done either of those things in a while, and it dawned on him that perhaps the second thing might be causing an actual alarm. “Uh,” he said again. “Notーnot really.”

Hermann’s face changed to a look that Newt was exceptionally familiar with; one that said “Newton, you absolute idiot.” 

Newt flinched.

“Oh for God’s sakes,” said Hermann, and gently took him by the arm to lift him up. “This is ridiculous.”

“Sorry,” Newt mumbled, letting himself be tugged along to the couch underneath the lab’s one window. Hermann sniffed.

“ _You_ haven’t done anything wrong; I keep saying they need to requisition you a new monitor, especially with all the pain you’re already bloody in, but everyone is so concerned with the “important folk” that nothing is getting done.” He carefully helped Newt to sit down and retrieved his carrying case from his desk. “Here. Do a check; you’re white as a sheet.”

Newt held back a whine at the thought of diving into the whole process: the inserting and pricking and squeezing and all those fucking numbers; it made his brain hurt. But he pressed his lips together and unzipped the case, inserting the test strip into the meter and unscrewing the cap of the lancet. He clicked the needle into place and wiped his pinky with an alcohol swab, but when he tried to get the hole of the lancet into position, his hands were shaking too badly to hold still. After several excruciating seconds of no luck, he made a noise of frustration and felt his face burn with embarrassment as hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

Without a word, Hermann took the lancet from Newt’s hand and cocked it again. “Here,” he said softly, “let me.”

He held Newt’s other hand and guided the cleaned area to the hole, pricking it quickly and gently pressing down so that a little bead of blood appeared. Newt hissed in pain, and Hermann rubbed his thumb across the top of his hand soothingly. “Almost done, I know, I’m sorry.”

He brought the test strip up to the blood and let it run into the groove, then held the meter as it counted down. When the little number appeared on the screen, he made a noise of alarm. “Oh dear. Sixty oneーthat’s not good.”

Newt let himself slump back against the couch cushions, wiping his pricked finger on his pants. “Yeah. No kidding, dude.” He thought of walking all the way back to his room to grab a juice box and groaned, letting his eyes slide shut for just a moment. “It’s fine, I’ll… uh… something.”

“Here,” came Hermann’s voice, then a rattle, and Newt opened his eyes to see him pull something out of his desk drawer. It was a large tupperware container, filled with various snacks and boxes of juice. Hermann pulled off the lid and held it out to Newt. “Everything’s around fifteen grams and fast acting, I believe. Take whatever you’d like.”

Newt stared at it, not quite processing what he was seeing. “I… uh… where did this come from?”

Hermann pinkened. “Well, er, when I learned we’d be back in a lab together, I took the liberty of preparing this in case you ever got a low. There’s glucose tablets in there as well, but I imagined you would prefer to have something to eat.” When he realized Newt was still gawking at the food, he selected half a white bagel and a packet of jam. “Here, how about this? I can toast it in the convection oven if you feel like you can wait that long.”

Newt just nodded dumbly and took the container as Hermann walked over to the kitchen area and set the oven to “toast”. He looked back at Newt, eyes a strange mixture of tender and sad. Newt looked away, shame twisting inside him.

“IーI’m sorry,” he said quietly, hands playing with the hem of his sweater. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

Hermann let out a small sigh. “Oh, Newton. Twice now we’ve Drifted, and you still don’t understand.” When Newt looked up again, he was back in front of him, and sat down a few inches away. “It’s not an obligation. It never has been. And I know how hard this isーit’s an absolute mess of timeーso I wish you would just let me take care of you.”

Newt didn’t know what to say to that, but Hermann’s voice was kind and genuine. He allowed his hand to drift the tiniest bit closer on the cushion next to his. “Iーokay,” he said, “but I know this stuff is really tedious and annoying, and I don’t want to make you, like, I dunno. Waste your time when I could just suck it up and learn how to be a person again.”

Hermann didn’t even hesitate to take Newt’s hand in his own. “You are learning. I watch you get better every day. And just like anyone who’s practicing at something, you need a little help while you do it. It’s not a waste of time when you need it, Newton.”

A funny little lump lodged itself in Newt’s throat, and he failed to swallow it down. Instead, he just croaked out, “Thanks,” and tentatively squeezed Hermann’s hand. Hermann squeezed back.

“Anything you need,” he said. “And whatever would make you happy. Even if it’s not as vital as, say, checking your levels.”

Newt wiggled his fingers as they intertwined with Hermann’s, letting out the smallest of laughs. “Okay,” he said, and that was a good enough answer for then, so they sat quietly on the couch together until the timer for the oven went off.


End file.
